Getting ubuntu running with an old Radion HD3470 graphics

[kezzy1901]

Hi all,
I have an old sony vaio laptop with a radion HD3470 graphics card.
It is a great little laptop and ideal for just browsing when over my elderly parents house.

Unfortunately the kernal support for this graphics card ended after 18.04 so anything after that causes the screen image to shake and it fairly impossible to use.

However, I have loaded kde neon based on 18.04 and it works fine but is out of date. Unfortunately it does not seem to want to install 'ubuntu advantage toos' for me to use 'ubuntu pro' so I cannot enjoy the 10 years of security releases only.

Instead it wants to install 397 updates. Would anyone know what update to deselect to stop it making unusable ? Or another strategy I could try ?
I have turned off updates for now.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Brickwizard]

the 2008 Sony only came with 2 GB of ram have you had it upgraded to its maximum of 4 GB? if not then you should be using medium or lightweight distributions, even with 4 GB some all singing distributions will struggle with the P series CPU
the Mesa drivers in the Kernel should work..


you could try sudo apt-get install --reinstall xserver-xorg-core libgl1-mesa-glx libgl1-mesa-dri

otherwise may have to find and install legacy drivers

 

[kezzy1901]

the 2008 Sony only came with 2 GB of ram have you had it upgraded to its maximum of 4 GB? if not then you should be using medium or lightweight distributions, even with 4 GB some all singing distributions will struggle with the P series CPU
the Mesa drivers in the Kernel should work..


you could try sudo apt-get install --reinstall xserver-xorg-core libgl1-mesa-glx libgl1-mesa-dri

otherwise may have to find and install legacy drivers

thanks for replying.
It has 4gb of RAM and mate and kde neon work surprisingly well.

What does that command do ?
Does it revert the graphics back to an old version ?

 

[Brickwizard]

What does that command do ?

just reinstalls both xorg server and mesa amd drivers